Researchers say they can capture enough detail to allow them to identify individual mammals in Cardigan Bay

Scientists in Wales are leaping ahead in their quest to unravel the mysterious private lives of dolphins, thanks to a piece of advanced photo equipment.

Researchers at New Quay-based Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre (CBMWC) are now able to photograph the animals nearly a kilometre away, in enough detail to be able to spot the differences in their fins that allow them to be identified.

Researcher Milly Metcalfe, in charge of the project, says the amount of data they now have on which dolphins use the area, how they use it, and how they relate to each other, has grown dramatically.

“In the past we could get similar information from boat surveys, but it was much more limited,” said Milly.

“Now I can stay in the office, working on identifying animals we’ve photographed earlier, and when our volunteers watching from the sea wall spot dolphins they can radio me and I can race out with the camera.”

The lens Milly uses –a 50-500mm zoom – was paid for last year by a grant from Environment Wales and it’s made a huge difference to researchers’ knowledge about the health of the dolphins, the largest resident population in the UK, and of the area they inhabit.

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